Although the theme of BEING YOURSELF has been done to death by other storytellers, director/screenwriter Bo Burnham conveys it with unique mastery and precision that wipes away the lies. His film, Eighth Grade, told from the point of view of Kayla during her last week of middle school, reveals all the personal stresses and insecurities of being a preteen. To make it greater, this apparently Atheistic cast and crew ended up supporting numerous biblical truths about what it means to be sincere with others and ourselves.
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It starts with Kayla’s expectations going into a bigger school, and how her past three years in middle school gave her knowledge far more valuable than the right boy to cuddle with or how to apply makeup on just right. Kayla struggles with putting herself out there but feels weak no matter how much attention she tries to get. The Beatitudes of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount affirm that all who feel weak will be blessed, (Matthew 5:2-11) which proves a point made by Kayla in one of her vlog entries: always be yourself (or humble yourself). The funny thing though is after recording this video, she then immediately follows a YouTube makeup tutorial, then gets back into bed to post a phony “just woke up like this” photo on Instagram. Despite her seeking approval from infinite followers, her father proves through the way he treats her that she does not need to look just right for his approval. It’s that same way with Jesus, who sees us as of “more value than many sparrows.” (Matthew 10:31)

It's never too early to get some speculations in for the next upcoming Academy Awards ceremony!

Well okay, maybe it is too early to predict what chances the UPCOMING films have, but as for those that have already been released, it's easier to speculate their chances. I'll keep this blog regularly updated throughout the year as more movies come out and more Oscar categories become clear, so be sure to come back after a while to see how the chances stack up!

The official nominations will be announced on January 13th 2020, and the ceremony (hopefully going hostless again) will be on February 9th, all so much earlier than last year, and hopefully much better!

Maximus is a great leader for the people of Rome. That we already understand.
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Commodus is a poor leader for the people of Rome. That we also understand.

But how do we know what makes a great leader? What is at stake if somebody has poor leadership skills?

There is one thing that helped me to learn the qualities on what takes a great leader: the very leaders of my own life—my mom and dad. Today, my lesson for this film is how every parent has the responsibility to be positive role models for their kids.

It took me a bit longer than others over time to learn how to pick up social cues, which was why my parents helped me learn by being socially well behaved themselves, and making sure that I saw that, even today with me as a grownup. Too many parents underestimate the heavy burden that every parent has in setting proper role models for their kids. Gladiator therefore contrasts positive role model (Maximus) against how a negative role model (Commodus) should look.
Commodus does all he can to win the people over, with great emphasis put on the deadly gladiator games. He even strives to win the honor of his nephew, who boasts of how he much prefers Maximus as the “savior of Rome.” Maximus didn’t have to live under the same roof as a child to leave a greater influence than the child’s corrupted uncle.

It served as a sequel to eighteen movies, and now the madness just keeps going. It’s honestly crazy how obsessed people get over Marvel; although every single one of them scores in high nine-digits in the US box office, hardly any of them deserve the praise due to their lack of cinematic artistry. Along with being chocked full of inconsistent acting, a tone that’s all over the place, dreadful dialogue, and lazy stereotypes, Avengers: Infinity War ignores any control God has over the universe, suggesting people gain it purely through mere rocks.
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Although yes, it’s a work of fiction, the use of Infinity Stones to control the universe sends the message that battle armor is physical, not spiritual, and should only be put on for our own glory, not to fight sin. (Matthew 24:6, Ephesians 6:10-18) But there are far more ways this CGI-heavy epic skews the sense of war in favor of idolatry.

A long while back ago, I did a post about twelve movie characters if they were Pokémon trainers, including Deadpool, Anna, Elsa, Rey, Kylo Ren, Iron Man, and others. Now, since the release of Detective Pikachu is only a month away from today, I'd like to share with you more of my own fantasizing of movie characters (plus other media figures) with their Pokémon!

It's no secret that the Academy is very distanced from what the general public wants to see, and it's even less of a secret that they prefer to give their little golden men to whatever studios had the best campaign strategy over which ones actually deserved to win.

Now here's the thing, if the Academy did go ahead and hand their awards out to the objectively best of the 400 something films that had their premiere in a Los Angeles movie theater within the calendar year, then a majority of those nominees would be foreign and indie films the average person would never have even heard of. You can't draw viewers in to watch the ceremony if it's full of something they can't relate to.

On the other end, if the Academy was like the People's Choice Awards, and only awarded popular movies for the sake of their popularity, then we won't be giving out awards based on artistic merit, just pandering to audiences. That's why Black Panther and Green Book each won as many as three Oscars, none of which were deserved.

Thus, I propose that the Academy finds a compromise between the two, so that they're awarding films that both deserve the honor and are widely well-known. With a *better* version of the most recent nominees created, I set some guidelines so that the popular films are guaranteed representation, such as the film must have grossed over $25,000,000, and that at least half the total nominees must have grossed over $100,000,000. As it turns out, the compromise is indeed possible!

...and that's a wrap! Another year in film is over! This was definitely the most unpredictable year in movies we've had in a long time, particularly on my end. Out of my 24 predictions, I only got 13 correct, which was worse than last years. :( At times the winner went to the right movie, at times I'd easily say it went to the worst movie. But the envelopes have already been opened, there was no mix-up anywhere, what's said has been said.

Below are the results. Thankfully all 24 of them were broadcast live, and none of them were for "Best Popular Film." The ones highlighted in gold are the ones that absolutely deserved to win. The ones highlighted in green are the ones that were among the worst in their respective nominees, and thus, should not have won.

Wow, can't believe the ceremony is only a week away! This has been quite the show leading up to the big show, with at least four negative decisions the Academy made to alter the show, until public response triggered them to change their plan. Now, we will see all 24 categories presented live, all but one of the nominated songs performed, all of last year's award recipients for acting give out this year's awards, and no BEST POPULAR FILM category!

We could very well see the strangest, most bizarre Oscar ceremony yet this Sunday, but like any year, I will still give you what I think will wind up winning the big prizes. They are:

Every leader has the responsibility of guiding by example to decide the best decisions for all parties, a well-intended theme Marvel attempts to address in the first superhero film ever to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. But Black Panther still forgets a core detail: no matter how pure and innocent the people of Wakanda call themselves, anything done without Jesus only goes to waste.​First off, there’s the treatment of religious deities that starts with their mythological backstory… which in their reality is fact, not mythology. T’Challa not only can step into the ancestral place, but even has a choice whether to stay. His ritual of entering the other side- burying himself under sand after drinking a certain herb, resembles ancient pagan practices where people perform various routines to meet a deity face-to-face. Amongst all the world religions that have false gods whom require works to earn blessing from, Christianity rather teaches about unconditional love that starts with Jesus taking our place on the cross. God’s final sacrifice proves that we have no need to follow rituals such as animal slaughter to earn our way into Heaven, it’s our hearts, not our actions, that the Lord is most concerned about. (1 Corinthians 10:31, James 2:14-26)

Whew! This only took me almost three years to compile. I first decided to do this March 2016, and that was before I even started my grading scale on how to assess a movie. Back then, I started going through watching all the Best Picture winners mostly by personal instinct, but knew I had to go through again with the ones I already watched and put them through my grading scale. Even then, my grading scale had a lot of massive alterations made over time, which meant some movies I graded I had to regrade so that I could get a more accurate score of the film's objective quality. That's why this took so long to complete. But here it is, finally! Yay!

Just a forewarning: lots of unpopular opinions and hot takes ahead, and there's ninety movies that won the prize, so prepare for lots of scrolling.